


It takes a village

by Lemon_lady



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Gen, Gibbs and Kate have a baby, I promise this isn’t as angsty as it looks, It Takes a Village to Raise a Child, I’m finally on season three!, Kid Fic, Mostly Gen, Papa Bear Jethro Gibbs, Protective Jethro Gibbs, Team as Family, Tony Dinozzo is a softie, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Ziva David could beat everyone up, more specifically - Freeform, the entire NCIS team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemon_lady/pseuds/Lemon_lady
Summary: Kate dies. Her unborn child, fathered by Gibbs, survives. A short (mostly) fluff piece about the members of the NCIS team pitching in to raise that child.
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Caitlin Todd
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	It takes a village

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this immediately after watching the two part opener to season three. I knew Kate was going to die going into the finale but her death still hit me hard :,) 
> 
> Kate was a favorite but I’m warming up to Ziva.....

Kate Todd was shot dead on the 25th of May 2005. The average wait time for an ambulance in the United States is eight minutes. That day, the paramedics arrived in just under two. A baby born at 22 weeks has a survival rate of ten percent, less if the baby in question is delivered by emergency rooftop c-section. When the blood in a pregnant woman’s body stops circulating her unborn child feels the adverse effects of oxygen deprivation within three minutes. Birth beyond four minutes puts the baby at a high risk for brain damage. 

Sarah Todd came into the world six minutes after her mother’s body hit the concrete. She started her life defying odds, and with a family like the one she was born into, she would continue to do so.

Gibbs was the only one who had known. Kate had told him in the early morning of her last day, pressed against his chest in the fluorescent light of the elevator at standstill. He had woken up the morning of May 25th with Kate by his side. He didn’t rest until Ari was dead. Sleep deprivation be damned. Gibbs had hunted that bastard down running on pure wrath. Retribution didn’t change the fact that the next time he went to bed his fiancé was dead and he had a newborn daughter, fighting to live in the Bethesda NICU. 

The team had gone to visit her together after Kate’s funeral. Sarah was so small the first time Gibbs had seen her, she could have fit in the palm of his hand. She opened her eyes when he’d reached a gloved hand into her incubator. He’d felt like she was staring into his soul, at the same hazel green eyes as her mother. She’d been somber lying there connected to too many tubes to count, but he’d seen a hint of Kate’s lighthearted mirth in her eyes. 

Everyone had shown up with a gift. Gibbs hadn’t asked, but he was grateful. He’d barely processed Kate’s pregnancy before Sarah was born. Needless to say he hadn’t had time to hit the BabiesRUs. Tony had brought a tacky pink onesie with the words ` _if you think I’m cute wait until you meet my uncle._ ’ emblazoned on the front. The man didn’t know a damn thing about baby sizes. It dwarfed her. 

“It’s for when she gets a bigger boss!” Dinozzo had protested while he stared fondly at the baby, one hand splayed on the incubator's glass.

McGee had presented her with a hat that looked suspiciously handknit and a pair of booties. The nurse on duty had offered to put them on but McGee had insisted on doing it himself. He’d dressed her as Gibbs breathed down the back of his neck sliding each tiny foot into the fuzzy socks with the utmost of care. Abby had taken a polaroid that first visit and had framed it by her computer. For the first few weeks of Sarah’s life when he wasn’t at the hospital Gibbs could be found in Abby’s lab reminding himself how far his daughter had come since those first touch and go days. Abby also brought a blanket cut out of one of her band tees.

“Can’t start 'em too young.” She’d hugged Gibbs tight after swaddling Sarah in it. 

Ducky had taken his childhood crib down from the Mallard’s attic. It was proper mahogany and a complete pain to get to Gibb’s spare room but the ME had insisted, nearly killing himself trying to cart it up the stairs alone. 

“Careful Doctor!” Jimmy Palmer had blanched as the older man wobbled on the final step before the landing.

“Don’t fret Mr. Palmer. I’m perfectly capable!” He’d answered before tumbling backwards into his assistants arms. 

The rest of the nursery was filled with the stash of baby supplies the team found at the back of Kate’s closet when they cleared out her apartment a few weeks after Sarah’s birth. Abby put her carpentry skills to good use building shelves that Gibbs would line with the brightly colored pacifiers and stuffed toys Kate had bought for her daughter. 

Tony and McGee spent an entire day off painting the nursery a lovely daffodil yellow. Gibbs had returned home from the hospital after midnight and found both men passed out on his living room couch, a half eaten box of pepperoni pizza balanced between them. He’d woken them up with a light slap to the back of head and they’d all but dragged him up the stairs. Tony had been so proud of their handiwork Gibbs hadn’t had the heart to get angry about the paint splashed all over his hardwood. 

Sarah was discharged from Bethesda after six months. Gibbs never let her out of his sight. His daughter became such a permanent fixture of NCIS office life that Director Shepherd had to petition to install a changing table in the head. Sarah took her first wobbly steps in the squad room, and said her first full sentence perched on McGee’s lap. Her first swear came a month later, (courtesy of Dinozzo’s extensive coaching) As she entered her terrible two’s Sarah could often be found in Abby’s lab, setting tea parties between Bert the hippo and Abby’s voodoo dolls. 

When Sarah got older things changed. Her mother’s old NCIS ball cap became a permanent fixture atop her head and an endless source of bad hair days. She ran down the halls like she owned the place, drawing the ire of a few probies a month. Nobody outside of Gibb’s inner circle dared discipline her. Her father had become an agency renowned Papa Bear. Sarah formed a habit of sneaking into autopsy to watch Ducky and Palmer reconstruct the recently deceased, and pressing her face against the one way mirror interrogation to watch Tony and McGee grill suspects. As much as Gibbs admired her abundance of curiosity, he worried for her safety. 

At first Ziva had kept her distance. Everyone understood why. Ziva was the furthest thing from cold hearted, she just hadn’t known Kate. The summer before Sarah went to kindergarten Gibbs wrangled her into teaching his daughter Krav Maga. Ziva would set her martial arts mat up in the backyard, and they’d train for a few hours before breaking for cold pomegranate juice and the authentic baklava’s Ziva had been so fond of during her childhood in Be'er Sheva. Sarah and Ziva had bonded that summer. The friendship would be a lasting one, and although Ziva had toed the party line and admonished Sarah for delivering a wicked uppercut to the snot faced boy who’d tried to steal her GI Joe at the on base playground, she’d given her a congratulatory fist bump when the rest of the team had turned the other way. 

  
Sarah’s first day of school was a milestone that the entire team had insisted on being part of. Abby had done her hair in pigtails, and applied the tiniest amount of clear lip gloss after an exorbitant amount of begging on the little girl's behalf. Ducky had prepared a perfectly balanced lunch and in response Tony and Ziva stuffed her backpack pockets full of the best combination of American and Israeli junk food a five year old could ask for. McGee had spent the better part of a year teaching Sarah to read so she’d have a head start. They’d all piled into Gibbs' newly purchased minivan to drop her off at the elementary. Tony teased Abby for crying as Sarah pulled her shoulders back and marched into her new classroom, but they’d all been holding back tears. _She’s still so small._ Gibbs had thought to himself as she walked away. 

The first few days without Sarah at headquarters didn’t feel real. Everyone had grown so used to the sound of her voice and the racket she made when Gibbs wouldn’t let her peek at their latest case files. 

They fell into a new routine by the time Halloween rolled around. Abby or Ducky would pick Sarah up from school. She’d work on her homework in the squadroom, and pass the time before her father took her home for dinner by having paper airplane contests with Tony. 

Sarah would continue to grow. By the second grade she’d be splitting her afternoons between after school sports programs and friends houses. But she’d always come back to the family she’d been taken into at NCIS. A family that all pitched in to raise her just as much as any biological one would have. She loved them just as much as Kate had. And they loved Sarah fiercely.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is much appreciated <3


End file.
